The Bread That Keeps Us
by EmmaMary
Summary: The small joyous moments she was able to share with him were tugged away from her faster than she had been tossed them, leaving her with nothing but small flashes of light that only accentuated the shades of black that engulfed her. RHr.


**Disclaimer- I do not own anything; including the excerpt from the wonderful poem that is written by a girl who I only know of as Christina. **

**AN- Eh, a find this semi choppy, not my best but it shall do. Maybe I will re-vamp one day.**

LINE

_Love is bitter, yet it is __the bread that keeps us__.  
Over and over it fills us up, only to starve us.  
The people whom we love shape our destinies and our strengths,  
yet leave us cold and alone in the darkness._

LINE

The house began to whisper quiet secrets into her ears, secrets she did not wish to hear. The drapes lining the windows were pulled tightly shut but the eerie moonlight still fell through the gaping edges. The shadows made by the outside world put on a chilling puppet show through the curtains, taunting her out of sleep. Although this house was once her haven, was once filled with bustling youngsters and hints of magic that were fascinating to a young muggle born witch, her world had now become too dark to find refuge in any inanimate place or object.

The things that had comforted her into sleep for the past months were suddenly absent and she was unable to excuse their vacancy. Her eyes were too droopy and her mind was too tired to lie wondering into the late hours of the night, so slowly she pulled back the homemade quilt from her small body and twirled out of the bed. Her bare feet padded down the dark hallway and up the creaky stairs in the path of her destination.

With only four children occupying the Weasley house for the night, each received their own room: Ron and Ginny in their own respectable rooms, Harry in the twin's room and Hermione in Percy's. It had been months since she had slept alone in a room, and most of that time she wasn't even able to sleep in a bed of her own. For the past nine months Harry, Ron, and Hermione had been on a brutal hunt for the remaining horcruxes. Within the first weeks they had discovered that Ron and Hermione were not safe. Harry was protected by the desire Voldemort held to destroy Harry himself, but the Death Eaters were out to kill any help Harry would receive in his fight against the Dark Lord. Extra security had been put on everyone close to Harry, and now even Ginny did not fight against the reasons he pushed her away.

The threat of death that was brought upon Ron and Hermione caused them to take many extra precautions while on their journey. The fact that they moved so often protected them a great deal, but the three of them still never slept in separate rooms, even if they were staying in a private home of someone they trusted. When they were in hotel rooms this brought up the issue of who would share a bed with whom. At first they had rotated who received their own bed at night (they had too much on their minds to be immature about it and much to much stress had been put on their bodies for any of them to sleep on the floor or even on an uncomfortable rollaway bed.) As the war drew nearer, however, Harry's nightmares worsened. He would wake up thrashing in the middle of the night without being able to recollect his dreams. In order to avoid bodily harm Ron and Hermione found it more practical that the two of them would share a bed.

Now, it seemed as Hermione slowly pushed open the door to Ron's bedroom, she was unable to sleep without him.

Slowly she crept to the side of his bed and laid a hand gently on his forearm slightly shaking him.

"Ron," she whispered only once before his eyes blinked open.

"Mione, what is it?" Ron asked, startled. "Are you okay? Did something happen?"

"No," Hermione stated quickly, "no nothing is wrong."

"Than why, if I may be so bold to ask," he began as he sat up in bed rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, "are you waking me up in the middle of the night?"

Hermione frowned and moved to sit at the edge of his bed.

"It's silly really it's just," she looked up from her twiddling thumbs to see a slightly annoyed look in Ron's eyes. It was then she felt very stupid and almost cruel. Ron had been forced to share a bed with her for months, and had been sleep deprived as well, now, here she was waking him up because she was being immature.

"Never mind, I was being stupid. You should just go back to sleep."

Hermione stood and began to walk out of the room, but before she even made a full step a large hand was wrapping around her wrist and stopping her. She turned and found Ron's questioning eyes looking up at her.

"You wouldn't have come here if it wasn't important, just tell me," Ron said. Although there was still annoyance in his eyes, it now seemed to be coming from the fact that Hermione had woken him up for no reason, not simply just because she had awoken him.

She took a deep breath and sighed, closing her eyes.

"Hermione," Ron said pulling her onto the edge of the bed once again, "you can tell me anything."

The softness in his voice made her want to cry for reasons that she could not account for. He had become so sweet to her over the year, and although they still bickered like mad, the quiet sensitivity he seemed to show only to her was making her fall for him even harder.

"I can't sleep," was the simple statement that she provided.

Ron looked at her blankly for a moment before speaking.

"Did you have a nightmare?"

"No, I just can't sleep. It's too, well, too quiet in my room," she said sheepishly.

"Well, that's usually the ideal conditions for someone who wishes to sleep."

Hermione didn't know if he was teasing her or not, his voice was too groggy to tell.

"Ron, I just…" she paused for a long moment.

"Just what?" He asked kindly.

"I just haven't slept alone in a room in a really long time and it's weird." She spoke without meeting his eyes, almost ashamed at her confession.

"Are you scared?" Ron asked sincerely before breaking out into a wide grin, "scared in a building that now has almost as much protection on it as Hogwarts ever did."

"I'm not scared," she said defensively.

"And you want me to protect you!" Ron said, ignoring her last comment completely. His voice was low, flirtatious, yet teasing (although that was their favorite way to flirt, teasingly.)

A year ago Hermione never would have guessed their relationship would have reached this level. Of course she had always had a soft spot for Ron, and maybe over the years, as each of them grew, the feelings she had for him grew to something more than a simple crush. He became her confidant and the bond that had grown between them was not only the result of close living quarters and time always spent together, it was because of the feelings they shared for one another, the loving feelings.

At first, during her years at school, Hermione thought her feelings were one sided, even when she noticed Ron's jealous tendencies or protectiveness, but after they had started this long endeavor, she was more than assured he felt the same way she did.

Whenever they would travel Ron would go out of his way to sit next to her, he would lay his hand on her knee comfortingly at times, or pull her into a hug when they received awful, or wonderful news. He had become the person that could read her emotions, and always seemed to ask her what was wrong when he read sadness on her face. Even when her answers would result in tears, he would take no reservations in pulling her into his arms and letting her cry into his broad frame.

Eventually their closeness became must less platonic. Late at night when they would spend hours looking through book after book on hotel beds, random couches, or even floors, when she would let out a sigh of frustration he would respond with a 'come here and just rest your eyes for a little.' More often than not he would let her rest her head in his lap and after ten or fifteen minutes would wake her up again.

Sometimes while they were deep in conversation he would randomly reach out and push a curl back from her face, and whenever he did so, her stomach would flip over happily. They also had a tradition of speaking to each other secretly, whispering secrets into one another's ears. Sometime the conversation would be dark and worrisome, other times it would be light and flirtatious. It had started in order to hide their magical conversations from muggles when they would have to use muggle transports or were forced to spend time in the muggle world. The whispering was also quite useful when Harry would drift off to sleep at odd times; the fitfulness of his sleep at night caused this to happen quite often.

Then, of course, there was Hermione's favorite aspect of the relationship her and Ron had developed, the kisses. They were not snogging sessions, or even ever on the mouth, but they were a sign of love none the less. Ron would kiss her head in an attempt to lighten her mood, or to show how proud he was with something she had done. Sometimes they were completely random; as though he were looking for something to reassure both of them everything was going to be okay. Hermione did the same thing with the kisses she would leave on his cheek, although less often since their height differences granted him greater access.

"That's not true," Hermione stood up and huffed at Ron's accusation that she needed protection. "I'm not scared and I don't need protection, I can take care of myself. Plus if I did need someone to protect me you would be far from my first choice," she badgered him with a smile as he rolled his eyes. She knew that her last comment was about as false as things could get, and something in her told her he knew that too.

Ron reached over to his nightstand and picked up his wand, muttering an incantation under his breath he pointed his wand at the foot of the bed. Suddenly the bed doubled in size and Hermione's eyes grew slightly larger. Ron scooted over to the new area of the bed and lay back down, facing Hermione.

"What was that for?"

Ron broke out into a full bellied laugh.

"Oh, come on, you are not that thick," Ron said laughing. Hermione's face remained in a frown, her arms over her chest. She knew that she wasn't really annoyed at him, and he knew it too, but this was the game they played; the game that kept them from admitting the feelings behind their stolen moments.

Her heart wrenched when she thought about the uncertainness of everything; of the entire war, mirroring their relationship.

She whished her life still shone in shades of dark black and florescent white.

She and Ron would stand on the white side, the good side. They would be able to admit their love without consequence. The dark side would only hold the terror of loss, the fear that Hermione would have to go though the pain of losing Ron. But those terrible things would never happen, because that is how a black and white world worked, good things happened, bad things were stopped.

Yet, just like every young girl who grows into a woman, Hermione had long since realized that the world was not split between right and wrong. The world played out just like old films, shades of nothing but grays. A white view said a book was all knowing and trustworthy, but on the black side it didn't matter how many books someone read. The two aspects of life melted into one another, twirling and spinning like a well made potion until it refined in a shade of bland grey, saying there was more to life than knowing every detail of each subject, in order for them to be useful one needed more than memorization. The grey areas of life were the ones that made Harry endure relentless pain and suffering despite his innocence. The grayest area of all was the one that smashed the pure darkness of Voldemort's evil with the colorless shade that he should be defeated, causing the grey tone to read that just because he _should _be, doesn't mean he _would_ be.

The world still had its rights and its wrongs in, but there was an even greater number of in betweens that had yet to be figured out in a life painted with tones of gray.

Unfortunately, as the war drew nearer, the gray areas of life darkened all too quickly, until everything was black. The tiny people with the perfect hair that would run amok in Hermione's television set when she was young now would bump into one another in the perpetual darkness.

The bright feeling that Harry, Ron and Hermione would almost definitely find the last of the horcruxes was greatly overshadowed by the cost at which they would come. As the black devastation poured over the world like hot lava Hermione could only think of pulling through with the defeat of Voldemort, but even then would someone close to them be hauled away forever by the eruption?

In this world where pitch black clouds blocked out all rays of sunlight Hermione and Ron could never be together. The blocks of black, such as the hurt their relationship would cause Harry (which could not be risked when the fate of the whole world was resting on the trio's equal friendship) or Ron's fear that if he were to admit his feelings and then was taken by the war he would leave Hermione heartbroken, were outnumbered by the very few squares of white.

So Hermione was left to contemplate the darkness that surrounded her. The small moments she was able to share with Ron, the moments that made her seem like everything was going to be okay, never lasted long enough. They were tugged away from her faster than she had been tossed them, which left her with nothing but small flashes of light that only accentuated the shades of black that engulfed her.

"I'm solving the problem Hermione, just go with it." Ron began, pulling her focus out of her thoughts that were falling through her mind like a waterfall on a rainy day.

She was astounded by the fact that he could be so light hearted in the midst of the heavy gloom, but even here, in the small room obscured with darkness, she could read his eyes. Although they were masked with blithe, she was able to look deep enough to find pallid shadows lurking there.

"What problem?" She said slyly. She figured a few sparks of light amongst the darkness was better than pure dim, not matter how much more they made her see the woe once they were gone, so she played along with Ron.

"You can't sleep without me," he said as Hermione rolled her eyes, "so I made room for you. Now I really want to go back to sleep, so you may either join me in this very comfortable bed, or close the door on your way out."

His indifference stung her, no matter how fake it was. Still, she threw back the sheets and crawled in; lying flat on her back while Ron lay on his side next to her, his eyes already closed.

"Good choice," he murmured with a smile.

They sat in silence for a moment before Hermione spoke.

"Where did you learn that spell anyway?"

"From a book," was the only answer she received.

"But you never read."

"I've read more books in the last nine months than I have read in my entire life. Without anything to distract me I am forced to remember some of what I read." Ron said this blankly, his eyes still closed.

Satisfied with his answer Hermione turned on her side as well, facing Ron. Her eyes, however, remained open, watching him.

"Has anyone ever told you that you are bloody insane?" He asked, starling her.

"Um, you," she smiled, "on occasion, why?"

"Just wondering," he replied through closed lids, "because you are." His own smile appears at his last words, which only made hers grow wider.

Hermione gazed at him and his irresistible persona, there was nothing she wanted more in that very moment to be held in his strongly built arms, for once to feel completely safe.

Still, she could not just ask him to hold her. Well, she supposed, she could ask him that, but her willingness was lacking. Yet the draw he was radiating was beyond her control, so she settled for sitting up and pretending to readjust her pillow, when she laid back down she was closer to him, and as she wiggled in an attempted to get comfortable, she moved closer to him still.

Now he was so close their arms were practically touching.

He smiled at her teasingly and she giggled back, telling him that is wasn't a crime to want to be close to him, his own second smile agreed with her before he too shifted so that their arms were indeed touching.

"Goonight Hermione," Ron said softly, kissing her on her forehead without even opening his eyes.

"Goonight Ron," Hermione said back a huge smile splaying across her face.

She knew things were complicated, more black than they could ever be white, yet there was still that tiny ray of hope. That small hope that one day they could be happy. She planned on grasping onto that hope with her life, waiting for it to come true. But until it did she would lie here next to the man she loved, sharing small moments that didn't needs words to be justified.

She would tell him, in words, that she loved him, before the war, before the possibility of it being too late.

But for now she would let her breath become steady with his, while the feeling of his kiss still lingered on her temple, yet the shades of black still surrounded her, heavy and unending, casting her into an even darker sleep.


End file.
